Epic and spectacular, gastronomic, but not always very tasty, with blood and tears was played this semifinal of “Top Chef” between Arnaud Delvenne, Louise Bourrat and Sébastien Renard. It’s up to everyone to imagine a test to put others in trouble, who, if they manage to beat him, score a point … In this game, Louise and Arnaud withdraw from the game when Sébastien falls on his carpet. And finished 3rd.
Arnaud opens the ball with a theme in his image, emotional and humorous: tuna fishing. Understanding the fruit in syrup and canned tuna, a typical dish for all young Belgians that leaves Louisa speechless as the brigade leaders – “Ah, is that a dish that exists? Shouts Paul Pairet – a little less Sébastien who grew up not far from the flat place.
Locals at the stop go with peach ravioli stuffed with raw tuna squares in tataki tones, Sébastien with cannelloni with fresh peaches and syrup trying to apply them – “It’s ugly, if you use it like that, we get a box.” warns Pairet. “It’s disgusting the old smash tone,” Louise can’t help herself as she opens her cans. Louise who plays the humor card and draws with her elements a fish, a peach and a fishing rod on her plate. “Do you want to play? We will play, “she laughs. Courage that does not work, in tasting: Philippe Etchebest and two-star Belgian Sang Hoon Degeimbre put Arnaud at the top. Points remain zero.
“It’s a horror movie”
A player, Louise certainly is. Just a step away from the finale, she has prepared a big surprise for her friends: prepare a dessert made from pork blood and chicken liver. Explains the “little satanic smile” that Arnaud raised on Louise’s face … “Inside he panics”, thinks the one who has the dessert in his pocket, a pudding with black pudding and dried fruit, pear boiled in hibiscus and chicken liver ice cream… “It’s a horror movie,” slips Paul Pairet. It’s a bit like that… We make pastry cream with blood, we make pancakes with blood, caramel, ice cream or chocolate ganash with blood… It flows and clots, red, red. Good grief, but it is Dracula tea that we are preparing!
Arnaud starts with a bloody pancake filled with a chocolate cream. It’s good. “Almost a trumpet-l’oeil, it looks like dessert,” laughs, not without grimace with the test statement, Etchebest. It’s also good. Sébastien dares foie gras raw in ceviche. Ole! “Net from home net, gross from gross”, notes the Italian Simone Zanoni who enjoys with MOF. Neither Arnaud nor Sébastien pass Louise’s cake. The result remains zero and blank.
It is therefore played in the final test, that of Sébastien. Excellent under pressure, the waiter imposes a hare à la royale review, a classic of French gastronomy that usually lasts two days. They only have two hours. A race with the clock in which he is thrown with his head, like the war machine we have seen done, by force and by slamming the butcher’s sheet over the corpse … It’s because the rabbit is whole. To cut, empty, debit … Of course, it smells strong!
Louise’s secret weapon
To avoid the mouth and keep our hearts high, Arnaud closes his nostrils with paper towel twists. “Where are we?” Glenn Viel tries to climb. “In a mess,” the candidate blows. this recipe – nor Arnaud for that matter – but she has a secret weapon, her great-grandmother’s notebook, a cook at a Loire castle in the late 19th century, a notebook she has always wanted to read. If he does not have it in hand, he has this recipe in mind, and he will modernize it with smoked eels, sea leaves, citrus.
“What creativity! “There’s a lot of sensitivity to this dish,” notes three-star Christian Le Squer, who supports Etchebest to decide between the three dishes. Leaving the ball in his head, Sébastien struggled in his cooking, Etchebest regrets the stiffness of the panoufles that envelop the medallion. Her sauce is “wonderful” for Le Squer, which still notes the flesh is a bit too pink. Even Arnaud’s dish seduces, despite a puffy apple that is not very academic and has a disturbing bitterness …
It is the end, the hour of balance in front of the bells that hide the result, the moment of sweet words, congratulations or comfort in the background of the cello. Take off your headscarves… “My career is a reflection of my life,” says Arnaud. “Very atypical, but emotionally crazy.” Louise first confesses to “her deceptive syndrome” and says she is “calm.” “No matter what the bell is, I’ve already won,” she smiles. Both win their place in the final.
Sébastien stops there. “I hope I do not disappoint anyone”, he breathes, keeping, despite everything, a smile and optimism. And Paul Pairet to reassure him of his pride, to congratulate him and take him on a final tour of the plateau by plane, to celebrate his journey and his semi-final.